How Hurricanes Form and Why Hurricanes Are Needed

How hurricanes form and maintain themselves. Why hurricanes are needed. Hurricanes can be very beneficial and destructive at the same time. They do have a positive aspect to the health of the planet.

Hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the Pacific and tropical cyclones in the Indian Ocean are all one and the same. This is how they form and why the Earth and mankind need hurricanes.

All the time we see on the news the fluffy haired newscaster yelling things like hurricane Alice is now at category 4. We need to look behind those scenes at what’s really going on.

How Hurricanes Form

They form the world over about the same way. The hurricanes that strike the United States usually form in one of two areas, the Atlantic and sometimes in the Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico. Many times a hurricane will form as a cluster of thunderstorms moving west off of the western coast of Africa, near the Cape Verde Islands.

The thunderstorms gather around other thunderstorms and grow in a low-pressure area known as a tropical depression. The storms spin around this low-pressure area becoming stronger. By the time August arrives, the Atlantic Ocean has had all summer to heat up and the water is getting quite warm. Hurricanes thrive and grow when the water temperature is at or above 80F (27C). As this tropical depression becomes stronger by moving over hot and humid water, the air rises into the center of the storm feeding it and causing it to become stronger.

As the depression strengthens, the central pressure drops and the winds increase. When the storm deepens and the pressure or the barometric pressure drops enough, the winds will hit a certain velocity, the storm can then turn into a tropical storm, this is when they are first named.

The storm continues over open, hot and humid water and grows. It is the deepening or the lowering of the central pressure that causes the winds to increase, as the pressure continues to drop the winds increase in the center of the storm. When the winds hit 74 mph (119 km/h) they are then designated as a hurricane.

Pixabay

The storm will then churn across the open water until it hits land or colder water. The hurricane strength depends on two things now, the temperature of the water and if it remains over open water. Moving into colder water will decrease the strength of the hurricane and moving over land will decrease the storm. The type of land will also determine the degree to which the storm decreases, if it moves over flat, low ground it won’t lose much strength, but moving over mountainous terrain can weaken the storm considerably.

Once the storm crosses land and contacts water again, it will usually start to strengthen until it once again either enters into colder water or hits more land. The warm ocean water is what causes the hurricane to grow and sustain itself. That’s why when you look at a map of an approaching hurricane; the map will show the coastal water temperature. The warmer the water, the less likely the hurricane will dissipate much before landfall.

Hurricanes move erratically since there are so many factors guiding their movement. For example, a hurricane looks to be on a direct path and then it veers off. Hurricanes react with other weather forces such as cold fronts. If a hurricane is moving towards the US coast and then veers, many times the reason for this is a cold front moving off of the US coast which collides with the hurricane causing it to veer off path. Forecasters are getting better all the time predicting, but still hurricanes are sometimes just too erratic to be predictive with their paths.

Why Hurricanes Are Needed and Beneficial

Hurricanes are good for the planet in that they cool things down. In this case a hurricane will redistribute hot air from one place to another. They move the hot air from the tropical regions to the more polar or northern latitudes. Like a circuit breaker, it keeps areas from overheating. Due to the upwelling of colder waters to the surface, the oceans cool. And the rain and cloud cover also contribute to this cooling left in the wake of a hurricane.

Hurricanes break droughts. So many times we hear of major droughts in certain parts of the world, such as Georgia or central Texas in the US being broken by a hurricane. Hurricanes might be thought of in a way as the world’s largest and most efficient desalinization plant imaginable. Taking salt water from the ocean through condensation and transporting this as fresh rainwater onto the land. Hurricanes are important for refilling reservoirs and underground aquifers. Which of course farmers, ranchers, cities and towns all need.

Some say that hurricanes are destructive to the land, yes in some ways they are. But the destruction is much like a forest fire by creating new. New sand bars for bird migration for example. Hurricanes do damage coral reefs such as in Florida. It was later found after Hurricane Andrew that the broken off coral reef actually formed a brand new coral reef.

Hurricanes are not to be taken lightly of course, but the next time the newscaster is yelling category 4, you can now look behind the scenes at what is really taking place.

Is Global Warming Causing Worse Hurricanes

This is a common topic, especially at the time of this update in November 2017, that global warming has caused the terrible hurricanes of 2017. According to the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, it is too early to know if global warming or global climate change has caused hurricanes to be worse. Their studies cite that by the end of the 21st century, hurricanes could be more intense by between 2% and 11%.

As the planet gets warmer, the oceans get warmer, and this can cause hurricanes to become more intense, though other research has found that this has not proved this yet.

2017 was certainly a bad year for hurricanes, but mainly due to the paths the hurricanes took. Hurricane Harvey made landfall at Port Aransas, Texas, near Corpus Christi causing terrible damage. But most will remember Harvey as causing incredible flooding in the Houston area.

This was due to a cold front that stalled the movement of Harvey as it stalled over the Houston area, putting down as much as 2 feet of rain in the area. Hurricane Irma, also a category 5 hurricane went through several Caribbean islands and then hit Florida.

Just a month after Hurricane Harvey, in September 2017, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands as a category 5. The island was still without power 2 months later.

Many people started saying these three very strong hurricanes were because of global warming, yet there is no real proof of that. There have been category 5 hurricanes for decades and centuries long before we ever heard of the phrase global warming. Other years, this region of the Caribbean and United States see only small hurricanes.

No doubt there is global warming, just look at the before and after pictures of glaciers, but again there is no proof that global warming caused the destructive hurricane season of 2017.

Fly Through a Hurricane

To see and experience what it’s like to fly into a hurricane, there is an excellent show that flies into Hurricane Gilbert. They interview the pilots and scientists as they fly into Gilbert and record the lowest barometer ever for an Atlantic hurricane. The show is a NOVA show titled Hurricane! Dated 11/07/89. You can find it at or through your library or buy it through NOVA at the PBS Store.

Here is the incredible video from the show about flying through Hurricane Gilbert from the NOVA show on YouTube.

Before 1953 Atlantic hurricanes were called by place names, dates or using military phonetics, then they started naming them with feminine names. In 1971 this was deemed unfair to females so they alternated between masculine and feminine names. In 1979, Hurricane Bob was the first male named hurricane.

Clairsie, that is a good question. I hope this answers it
without confusing it. What causes a thunderstorm or hurricane to
build is the updraft. If youâ€™ve ever watched a
thunderstorm from a distance build and watched it bubble or explode
upward, that is caused by the updrafts. The updraft is pushing up
air and moisture from the ground or in this case the ocean. Over
the ocean there is very warm and humid air being pushed or
â€œup-draftedâ€ into the storm. The
moisture is in the form of water vapor. And this comes from
evaporation. Only pure water is evaporated and the salt is left
behind. This water vapor is drawn up into the storm and then
condenses into pure water and falls as rain. When I said
desalinization, I basically meant that a storm was gathering all
that water vapor from the ocean and then depositing it as rain over
land. So the hurricane gathers the vapor, condenses it and then
transport over land when the hurricane makes landfall. The basic
answer is the evaporation of the water over the ocean is pure water
only, condenses and then rains fresh rainwater. One other note, any
pollutants that fall with rain, like acid rain, comes from the
atmosphere. The water vapor through evaporation is pure water, any
pollutants in the rain occur in the atmosphere and clouds of the
storm.

Your question will also be posted as a public question in the Knoji forums, so be sure to phrase it as a general question that anyone could answer. Personal questions and private messages should be sent using the Message Me feature instead.

To maintain a high standard for new discussions started, each Knoji member is limited to a certain number of questions each day. Use your questions wisely, ask quality questions and you'll get quality answers.

Credits refresh at midnight US Central time, at which time you'll receive your next day's allotment of credits.

When people like the answers you provide, they make a public acknowledgement by placing a vote for your answer. The more votes you accumulate on Knoji, the higher you move up in rank. Increased rank gives you increased capabilities, more perks and more expert cred around the site.

We limit the number of questions members can ask on Knoji each day in order to improve the quality of questions and answers. Your question credits will reset each day at midnight US Central time, so come back then to ask more questions!

Contributors on Knoji are awarded Levels as they establish themselves as experts within the community. There are three ways in which users can increase their level, via writing articles or via answering questions, or both.

Your primary job as an Ambassador is to kick off thoughtful discussion threads around products, services. Your discussions can be on any topic in Knoji's category system. Here are some examples of the types of discussions you'll be starting:

Requests for recommendations for any type of product or service, examples:

People on Knoji ask questions seeking recommendations for products and services. We encourage our community members to answer questions whenever you can make a useful recommendation towards any request.

People on Knoji ask questions seeking recommendations for products and services. We encourage our community members to answer questions whenever you can make a useful recommendation towards any request.

When pointing to specific products, please link to specific product pages on Amazon.com or Walmart.com (Ambassadors: You earn increased rewards when doing this)

You should include screenshots of the products you recommend (Ambassadors: you earn increased rewards when doing this)

Try to recommend products that you've had personal experience with. If not, it is acceptable to recommend products or options based on thorough research you do online.

Asking questions

On Knoji, you can ask any question about any consumer or shopping-related topic. Many questions involve requests for recommendations for any type of product or service, examples:

To qualify as a working coupon, the link or code must provide a discount above and beyond what's freely available by default on the vendor's site.

To check this, first click the link and check that the coupon can be applied and does provide the discount described. Then, in a different browser, open the vendor's site (without using the Knoji link) and check whether that same discount is available to any user by default. If it's not, and the coupon works, then you've found a qualified coupon and can verify it and get your earnings. If not, you can verify that it does not work (explain why this is) and you'll earn a smaller credit.

Don't waste your time verifying invalid coupons! Before you receive payment, all your verifications will be reviewed, and if they are invalid, you earnings will be deleted. Verify only valid coupons in order to receive payment for this project.